Virtual War Museum Australia - my Personal Story about Stan Marsh & Eulogy for his daughter, Desley (d. 16.4.2024)

read the rest at the bottom of this page or visit the VWMA page

FROM THE DRAFT EULOGY

... Des was born at the Womens hospital (check birth certificate) in Sydney. Her forefathers were New South Welshmen and women. Many from Wallsend, a now historic mining village that is part of Newcastle. Des often mentioned her eclectic ancestry of coal miners, wealthy merchants, unionists, Mayors, gold rush winners in Bendigo and soldiers from WWII. It was sadly without much detail given some personal tragedies concerning her father Corporal Sidney Stanley Marsh from Bulli, on the spectacular NSW coast and her mother Lillie, who also served - in the WAAF in Sydney according to the few black and white photos I used to quiz Grandma about back in my childhood in Freshwater, just up from the creek and fu-nfilled swimming hole.

Ironically, it has taken our mother's passing on Sunday 16 June for us to "fill in the broad brushstrokes" of the Marsh-Thornton-Paterson family history. The finer points of drawing the family tree occurred after I was inspired by the ANZAC Dawn Service this year in Cairns. Her Dad was a humble mechanic from rural coastal NSW and aspired to be a pilot when he joined the Australian Army at 20. He ended up being sent to the UK to learn how to recover and fix Spitfires and other WWII aircraft, before being posted to combat in Papua New Guinea and SE Asia. His father Edward Henry Carrington Marsh was in the Royal Navy, meanwhile Des's great-aunt from Orbost in Victoria was praised by the RAAF for being an outstanding radio operator!

Since ANZAC Day 2024, I have been on a journey of discovery on ancestry.com (using AI to discover many connected family trees and ancestors from Oz, Germany and the USA) and the much appreciated responses of Canberra's Virtual War Memorial for Aussie service men and women. Des' had military forebears stretching back ca 6 generations to when they emigrated from Scotland, Ireland and England to Australia and New Zealand. On the latter - we didn't know we had a Kiwi great great grandmother so that might explain Des's affinity and love for our neighbouring country.

I've returned 5 times since April 2o22, up to 8-10 weeks at a time, to be there for Mum and help Dad and the family with the round the clock care that Alzheimers' demands of its victims and carers. I had spent around 2 months in the "tropical spring" of 2019 before COVID changed everyone's world. I was writing a book on AI for my New York publishers. Even though dementia was already evident, Mum was as always kind, caring and interested in what I was doing. She had the same attitude and approach to anyone she knew - even strangers she might meet in a café in Cairns or on one of her much loved journeys in Asia, Europe or Australia and New Zealand. The short video with music and photos will tell the tale of those trips and her great love of travel.

The cut text about Stan edited from my eulogy for his daughter, my mother Desley

Her cousin, Lynn Grieve, asked me to edit the eulogy because she felt that Stan, as a perpetrator of Domestic Violence, should not be noted to that extent. He was very violent from what she told me. Lynn recalled the police turning up to take him away when she as a child, and my great aunt Thel, her mother, and Lynn's father arrived at Des' house in Sydney.

It was the "final intervention" she said when the Thel Thornton, took her sister to safety in Grafton, the inland riverside town where her family lived. I visited Auntie Thel in Grafton during my uni years but she never mentioned this history. Mum did say one thing that collaborates this early childhood trauma - she said the last memory she has of her Dad was him being dragged away by police from the family home, due to his violent behaviour.

That's all I know from her... She always said, with a lot of deep sadness, "one day I will tell you more about my life", but she never did. The edited version known as the "Final Eulogy" in my family, can be downloaded below. This "censored" excerpt includes parts of it as an excerpt. I think Lynn was right - I wasn't there and don't know the full facts.

As a supporter of DV victims' rights and having experienced domestic abuse myself, I do think it is such a sensitive issue and needs to be respected carefully. Thus in the public acknowledgement of Stan at the Virtual War Memorial (see the screenshot above), I refer to his domestic violence as "he was frightening and threatening" which is why his wife and daughter cut off all contact... due to his PTSD to give my grandfather some credit that he apparently went into rehab to get himself treated (something Grandma told me once...).